Totally agree. There's also a disturbing shift toward judging the quality of songs by metrics of popularity -- i.e. how many units were sold or whether the single topped the charts.
"The Fly" was perfect as is and didn't get better by 2005, Bono!
Also, if you listen to the free Rolling Stone interviews with Bono on itunes, his opinons are mad. He says stuff like "Achtung Baby" is a great album, but that ATYCLB and HTDAAB have better songs. Seriously, I think the band tends toward losing it. This was over a year after the album came out, so the syndrome of loving what they just made had worn off.
Bono, also in the Rolling Stone audio interview,thinks the lyrics on Joshua Tree are better than before, but aren't nearly as good as nowadays.
Complete madness!